He’s definitely closest to Ainley but I feel he’s more the Master than Simm. I don’t really like Simm’s Master until he dons the goatee for The Doctor Falls.
8 Likes
So true. I’m going to have that quote framed 
7 Likes
Simm was far more the Master when he grew the beard then before that, and I’ve never been a big fan of them adding the whole drumming in the Master’s head driving him crazy bit in new Who, because he wasn’t crazy in classic Who…
8 Likes
What I think appeals about Dhawan’s Master compared to the other two in the revival is that he’s not just playing crazy, there’s a definite controlled side to him like the Masters of old, but he’s unstable, at any given moment he can go off the rails, he’s definitely my favourite of the three revival Masters. I hope we see him face off against Gatwa’s Doctor, just preferably not in an episode written by RTD, I don’t enjoy how he writes the Master.
But really what I’m really dreading is the idea we might get a new Master this era? I think it’s unnecessary, I think Dhawan should be like Ainley and persist through multiple Doctor’s eras. Even then, we’re talking about two time travellers here, they don’t have to meet in linear order! We could have Dhawan back one year, Gomez the next, or RTD could go a bit more The Doctor Falls with it and give us The Three Masters! I can’t help but feel recasting would just be for the sake of recasting and letting these characters go to waste.
9 Likes
There is an unwritten rule that the Doctor and the Master meet in order which the series has rarely broken. The audios have played with it a little, but even there Beevers’ first reprise of the role was explained as being a degeneration from the Ainley Master.
10 Likes
What are rules to a time traveler if not something to be broken? I think with how they’re played you really can’t bring incarnations of the Master back to before their introduction, but old familiars should be fair game.
8 Likes
That may well be true but the classic series always went to great lengths to have the Master survive his previous encounter - especially Ainley’s Master. They never seemed to entertain the idea that they could meet out of order and I know there was a vague attempt in the novels, I think, to suggest that their timelines were tied together somehow meaning they would always meet ‘in order’. The modern series meddled with it a bit, but not until World Enough and Time. Dhawan’s placement is vague because I know some people think he is pre-Missy but others post.
9 Likes
I do love the loose continuity with Ainley, how they tie-in Kamelion to his escape from Xeriphas, Planet of Fire making a point of coming back to this and Mark of the Rani hand-waving his fate in his previous story away!
7 Likes
Yeah, this is one of these things I know people go back and forth on, and either is possible.
I also get wanting to keep the character development and redemption as Missy… but I’m not sure the latter actually happened?
The Master’s good at getting out of prison, and part of that tends to be acting as if they had turned a new leaf or were redeemed.
The Master also once spent years on earth doing new schemes right near the Doctor to spend time with them. I could easily see the Master deciding to act redeemed in order to spend some quality time with one of their oldest friends exploring the galaxy.
(And it really is a shame we didn’t get a season of Missy traveling with the Doctor, especially if she kept pretending to be the Doctor. Revisit WOTAN, with Missy claiming to be the Doctor Who that WOTAN required?)
8 Likes
Until told otherwise I am going to assume that Dhawan is post-Gomez 
And the “redemption” of Missy was played just well enough to be ambiguous. I really enjoyed the whole aspect of simultaneously hoping that Missy was being genuine while still very much believing it to be a double bluff on Missy’s part.
And I am really glad that the redemption bit seems done and dusted for the moment
9 Likes
Spy-Master is post, post Missy for me. There is The Lumiat in there between them. Explains why the Spy-Master is so ‘wonky’.
7 Likes
Personally I just wish they had waited a bit longer until they brought the Master back after Missy’s end. It was inevitable that they would bring him back, but I feel waiting a bit longer would have made a bigger impact. On the other hand I love Dhawan as the Master and hope that he becomes the next Ainsley too. (Though I do think the fact Ainsley worked with so many Doctors is the reason that he doesn’t particularly stand out to me. With all other Masters their relationship with “their” Doctor is what makes them (in part) so iconic)
12 Likes
That’s a part of Big Finish I haven’t delved into. Where do we first encounter the Lumiat?
6 Likes
Missy 2.1.
Then a couple of other appearances. Missy is the main one though… so far.
6 Likes
I would argue the Roberts Master was crazy too, just a different flavour of crazy. But maybe that’s just the territory that comes with being a goo snake.
7 Likes
That’s kinda the movie for you. The Doctor’s suddenly half human and romantically interested in human women, the Master is suddenly crazy. They definitely weren’t afraid to make changes…
6 Likes
I’d love to see the MacQueen Master appear on TV. I’d also like Big Finish to start using the the Delgado Master in some their Third Doctor audios.
11 Likes